Techniques for device configuration of prospective contacts using messaging history information

ABSTRACT

Techniques for device configuration of prospective contacts using messaging history information are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a client front-end component operative to receive a client inbox request for a user account from a client device, the user account for a communication system; and send an ordered prospective contact list to the client device in response to the client inbox request; a prospective contact list component operative to generate a prospective contact list for a user account, wherein generating the prospective contact list for the user account excludes any existing contacts from an existing contact list for the user account; a predicted interest component operative to determine a predicted communication interest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact list; and a contact ranking component operative to determine a ranking weight for each prospective contact on the prospective contact list. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

BACKGROUND

Users may interact with each other in a messaging system, sendingmessages back and forth to each other in a text-based conversationbetween two or more users. A user may have a user account associatedwith them in the messaging system, the user account providing an onlineidentity for the user, a destination for messages directed to the user,and generally coordinating the user's access to and use of the messagingsystem. A user may access the messaging system from a variety ofendpoints, including mobile devices (e.g., cellphones), desktopcomputers, web browsers, specialized messaging clients, etc.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basicunderstanding of some novel embodiments described herein. This summaryis not an extensive overview, and it is not intended to identifykey/critical elements or to delineate the scope thereof. Some conceptsare presented in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detaileddescription that is presented later.

Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques for deviceconfiguration of prospective contacts using messaging historyinformation. Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniquesfor device configuration of prospective contacts using messaging historyinformation based on contact-of-contact relationships, soft-matchrelationships, and reverse-contact relationships. In one embodiment, forexample, an apparatus may comprise a client front-end componentoperative to receive a client inbox request for a user account from aclient device, the user account for a communication system; and send anordered prospective contact list to the client device in response to theclient inbox request, the ordered prospective contact list ordered fordisplay for the user account based on a determined ranking weight foreach prospective contact on the ordered prospective contact list; aprospective contact list component operative to generate a prospectivecontact list for a user account for a communication system based on auser repository for the communication system, the prospective contactlist comprising a plurality of prospective contacts, wherein generatingthe prospective contact list for the user account excludes any existingcontacts from an existing contact list for the user account; a predictedinterest component operative to determine a predicted communicationinterest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact listfor the user account; and a contact ranking component operative todetermine a ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list based on the predicted communication interestfor each prospective contact list. Other embodiments are described andclaimed.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certainillustrative aspects are described herein in connection with thefollowing description and the annexed drawings. These aspects areindicative of the various ways in which the principles disclosed hereincan be practiced and all aspects and equivalents thereof are intended tobe within the scope of the claimed subject matter. Other advantages andnovel features will become apparent from the following detaileddescription when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a provisional contact promotionsystem.

FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a social graph.

FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with a prospectivecontacts display.

FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface with a contact adddialog.

FIG. 3C illustrates an embodiment of a user interface for a messagethread for an added contact on an adding client device.

FIG. 3D illustrates an embodiment of a user interface for a messagethread for an added contact on a recipient client device.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a provisional contact promotionsystem processing a client inbox request.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow for the system of FIG.1.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a centralized system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a distributed system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a computing architecture.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a communications architecture.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a radio device architecture.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A messaging system may support a large number of and a large variety ofusers. Users may have contacts on the messaging system, where contactscorrespond to other users with which they have a relationship registeredwith the messaging system. Users may be provided with a variety ofdisplays of their contacts according to various techniques. Users mayalso benefit from being provided with displays of other users of themessaging system that are not currently in their list of contacts forthe messaging system, but that are predicted to be of interest to themfor messaging communication.

In a messaging interface a user may be displayed recent threads, such asa number of the most-recently-active threads. This interface of recentthreads may be useful to a user wishing to reengage with recentconversations. However, to increase a user's utility with a messagingsystem, and to increase the messaging system's engagement with a user,the user may be suggested prospective contact with which they may wishto engage. This may increase the number of users a user is in contactwith, a user's engagement with the messaging system, and a user's levelof activity on the messaging system.

It will be appreciated that the techniques described herein may be usedin any system where users are suggested other users with which tocommunicate using a communication system, such as a messaging system,email system, voice communication system, video communication system, orany other communication system. The techniques described herein withregards to contacts in a messaging system may be used in any embodimentin which a plurality of users are promoted to another user forcommunication. Users for promotion may be selected from any of thoseavailable to the communication system.

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numeralsare used to refer to like elements throughout. In the followingdescription, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details areset forth in order to provide a thorough understanding thereof. It maybe evident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practiced withoutthese specific details. In other instances, well known structures anddevices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate adescription thereof. The intention is to cover all modifications,equivalents, and alternatives consistent with the claimed subjectmatter.

It is worthy to note that “a” and “b” and “c” and similar designators asused herein are intended to be variables representing any positiveinteger. Thus, for example, if an implementation sets a value for a=5,then a complete set of components 122 illustrated as components 122-1through 122-a may include components 122-1, 122-2, 122-3, 122-4 and122-5. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram for a provisional contact promotionsystem 100. In one embodiment, the provisional contact promotion system100 may comprise a computer-implemented system having softwareapplications comprising one or more components. Although the provisionalcontact promotion system 100 shown in FIG. 1 has a limited number ofelements in a certain topology, it may be appreciated that theprovisional contact promotion system 100 may include more or lesselements in alternate topologies as desired for a given implementation.

Messaging servers 110 may comprise one or more messaging serversoperated by a messaging platform as part of a messaging system. Amessaging server may comprise an Internet-accessible server, with thenetwork 120 connecting the various devices of the messaging systemcomprising, at least in part, the Internet. A messaging system may usethe messaging servers 110 to support messaging for various user clientdevices.

A user may own and operate a smartphone device 150. The smartphonedevice 150 may comprise an iPhone® device, an Android® device, aBlackberry® device, or any other mobile computing device conforming to asmartphone form. The smartphone device 150 may be a cellular devicecapable of connecting to a network 120 via a cell system 130 usingcellular signals 135. In some embodiments and in some cases thesmartphone device 150 may additionally or alternatively use Wi-Fi orother networking technologies to connect to the network 120. Thesmartphone device 150 may execute a messaging client, web browser, orother local application to access the messaging servers 110.

The same user may own and operate a tablet device 160. The tablet device150 may comprise an iPad® device, an Android® tablet device, a KindleFire® device, or any other mobile computing device conforming to atablet form. The tablet device 160 may be a Wi-Fi device capable ofconnecting to a network 120 via a Wi-Fi access point 140 using Wi-Fisignals 145. In some embodiments and in some cases the tablet device 160may additionally or alternatively use cellular or other networkingtechnologies to connect to the network 120. The tablet device 160 mayexecute a messaging client, web browser, or other local application toaccess the messaging servers 110.

The same user may own and operate a personal computer device 180. Thepersonal computer device 180 may comprise a Mac OS® device, Windows®device, Linux® device, or other computer device running anotheroperating system. The personal computer device 180 may be an Ethernetdevice capable of connecting to a network 120 via an Ethernetconnection. In some embodiments and in some cases the personal computerdevice 180 may additionally or alternatively use cellular, Wi-Fi, orother networking technologies to the network 120. The personal computerdevice 180 may execute a messaging client, web browser 170, or otherlocal application to access the messaging servers 110.

A messaging client may be a dedicated messaging client. A dedicatedmessaging client may be specifically associated with a messagingprovider administering the messaging platform including the messagingservers 110. A dedicated messaging client may be a general clientoperative to work with a plurality of different messaging providersincluding the messaging provider administering the messaging platformincluding the messaging servers 110.

The messaging client may be a component of an application providingadditional functionality. For example, a social networking service mayprovide a social networking application for use on a mobile device foraccessing and using the social networking service. The social networkingservice may include messaging functionality such as may be provided bymessaging servers 110. It will be appreciated that the messaging servers110 may be one component of a computing device for the social networkingservice, with the computing device providing additional functionality ofthe social networking service. Similarly, the social networkingapplication may provide both messaging functionality and additionalsocial networking functionality.

In some cases a messaging endpoint may retain state between usersessions and in some cases a messaging endpoint may relinquish statebetween user session. A messaging endpoint may use a local store toretain the current state of a message inbox. This local store may besaved in persistent storage such that the state may be retrieved betweenone session and the next, including situations in which, for example, alocal application is quit or otherwise removed from memory or a deviceis powered off and on again. Alternatively, a messaging endpoint may usea memory cache to retain the current state of a message inbox butrefrain from committing the state of the message inbox to persistentstorage.

A messaging endpoint that retains the state of a message inbox maycomprise a dedicated messaging application or a messaging utilityintegrated into another local application, such as a social networkingapplication. A messaging endpoint that relinquishes state of a messageinbox may comprise messaging access implemented within a web browser. Inone embodiment, a web browser, such as web browser 170 executing onpersonal computer device 180, may execute HTML5 code that interacts withthe messaging server to present messaging functionality to a user.

A user may send and receive messages from a plurality of devices,including the smartphone device 150, tablet device 160, and personalcomputer device 180. The user may use a first messaging application onthe smartphone device 150, a second messaging application on the tabletdevice 160, and the web browser 170 on the personal computer device 180.The first and second messaging applications may comprise installationsof the same application on both devices. The first and second messagingapplications may comprise a smartphone-specific and a tablet-specificversion of a common application. The first and second messagingapplication may comprise distinct applications.

The user may benefit from having their message inbox kept consistentbetween their devices. A user may use their smartphone device 150 on thecell system 130 while away from their home, sending and receivingmessages via the cells system 130. The user may stop by a coffee shop,or other location offering Wi-Fi, and connect their tablet device 160 toa Wi-Fi access point 140. The tablet device 160 may retrieve itsexisting known state for the message inbox and receive updates that havehappened since the last occasion on which the tablet device 160 hadaccess to a network, including any messages sent by the smartphonedevice 150 and that may have been received by the user while operatingthe smartphone device 150. The user may then return home and accesstheir message inbox using a web browser 170 on a personal computerdevice 180. The web browser 170 may receive a snapshot of the currentstate of the message inbox from the messaging servers 110 due to it notmaintaining or otherwise not having access to an existing state for themessage inbox. The web browser 170 may then retrieve incremental updatesfor any new changes to the state of the message inbox so long as itmaintains a user session with the messaging servers 110, discarding itsknown state for the message inbox at the end of the session, such aswhen the web browser 170 is closed by the user. Without limitation, anupdate may correspond to the addition of a message to a mailbox, adeletion of a message from a mailbox, and a read receipt.

A messaging system may operate by defining a messaging inbox ascomprising a plurality of messages, wherein each message is anindividual transaction of communication between two or moreparticipants. A mail server may operate by maintaining a message indexfor the messaging inbox. Mail servers may receive messages and store themessages in mail archives from which messages may be retrieved throughreference to the message index. Mail clients may connect to the mailservers and retrieve messages that have been added to their mail archivesince their last update. The mail clients may receive a mail index fromthe mail archive indicating what messages are stored in the mailarchive. The mail clients may compare the mail archive to their currentinbox in order to determine what messages they are missing, which theythen request from the mail archive. The mail clients may make changes totheir inbox, which results in mail inbox instructions being transmittedto the mail archives instructing the mail archives in modifications tomake to the representation of their mail inbox on the mail archives.

Messaging interactions mediated by a messaging system may be organizedinto shared spaces known as message threads. A message thread maycollect together the messages shared between a particular group ofusers. Messages sent individually between a pair of users may becollected into a one-on-one message thread uniquely associated with theprivate messaging between the pair of users. Messages sent between agroup of three or more users may not be uniquely defined by theirmembership, but instead by, in some embodiments, an identifier uniquelyidentifying the group thread. Membership in a group thread may, in someembodiments, vary over time, adding and/or losing members.

The messaging system may use knowledge generated from interactions inbetween users. The messaging system may comprise a component of asocial-networking system and may use knowledge generated from thebroader interactions of the social-networking system. As such, toprotect the privacy of the users of the messaging system and the largersocial-networking system, messaging system may include an authorizationserver (or other suitable component(s)) that allows users to opt in toor opt out of having their actions logged by the messaging system orshared with other systems (e.g., third-party systems), for example, bysetting appropriate privacy settings. A privacy setting of a user maydetermine what information associated with the user may be logged, howinformation associated with the user may be logged, when informationassociated with the user may be logged, who may log informationassociated with the user, whom information associated with the user maybe shared with, and for what purposes information associated with theuser may be logged or shared. Authorization servers or otherauthorization components may be used to enforce one or more privacysettings of the users of the messaging system and other elements of asocial-networking system through blocking, data hashing, anonymization,or other suitable techniques as appropriate.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a social graph 200. In particularembodiments, a social-networking system may store one or more socialgraphs 200 in one or more data stores as a social graph data structure.

In particular embodiments, social graph 200 may include multiple nodes,which may include multiple user nodes 202 and multiple concept nodes204. Social graph 200 may include multiple edges 206 connecting thenodes. In particular embodiments, a social-networking system, clientsystem, third-party system, or any other system or device may accesssocial graph 200 and related social-graph information for suitableapplications. The nodes and edges of social graph 200 may be stored asdata objects, for example, in a data store (such as a social-graphdatabase). Such a data store may include one or more searchable orqueryable indexes of nodes or edges of social graph 200.

In particular embodiments, a user node 202 may correspond to a user ofthe social-networking system. As an example and not by way oflimitation, a user may be an individual (human user), an entity (e.g.,an enterprise, business, or third-party application), or a group (e.g.,of individuals or entities) that interacts or communicates with or overthe social-networking system. In particular embodiments, when a userregisters for an account with the social-networking system, thesocial-networking system may create a user node 202 corresponding to theuser, and store the user node 202 in one or more data stores. Users anduser nodes 202 described herein may, where appropriate, refer toregistered users and user nodes 202 associated with registered users. Inaddition or as an alternative, users and user nodes 202 described hereinmay, where appropriate, refer to users that have not registered with thesocial-networking system. In particular embodiments, a user node 202 maybe associated with information provided by a user or informationgathered by various systems, including the social-networking system. Asan example and not by way of limitation, a user may provide their name,profile picture, contact information, birth date, sex, marital status,family status, employment, education background, preferences, interests,or other demographic information. In particular embodiments, a user node202 may be associated with one or more data objects corresponding toinformation associated with a user. In particular embodiments, a usernode 202 may correspond to one or more webpages. A user node 202 may beassociated with a unique user identifier for the user in thesocial-networking system.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond to aconcept. As an example and not by way of limitation, a concept maycorrespond to a place (such as, for example, a movie theater,restaurant, landmark, or city); a website (such as, for example, awebsite associated with the social-network service or a third-partywebsite associated with a web-application server); an entity (such as,for example, a person, business, group, sports team, or celebrity); aresource (such as, for example, an audio file, video file, digitalphoto, text file, structured document, or application) which may belocated within the social-networking system or on an external server,such as a web-application server; real or intellectual property (suchas, for example, a sculpture, painting, movie, game, song, idea,photograph, or written work); a game; an activity; an idea or theory;another suitable concept; or two or more such concepts. A concept node204 may be associated with information of a concept provided by a useror information gathered by various systems, including thesocial-networking system. As an example and not by way of limitation,information of a concept may include a name or a title; one or moreimages (e.g., an image of the cover page of a book); a location (e.g.,an address or a geographical location); a website (which may beassociated with a URL); contact information (e.g., a phone number or anemail address); other suitable concept information; or any suitablecombination of such information. In particular embodiments, a conceptnode 204 may be associated with one or more data objects correspondingto information associated with concept node 204. In particularembodiments, a concept node 204 may correspond to one or more webpages.

In particular embodiments, a node in social graph 200 may represent orbe represented by a webpage (which may be referred to as a “profilepage”). Profile pages may be hosted by or accessible to thesocial-networking system. Profile pages may also be hosted onthird-party websites associated with a third-party server. As an exampleand not by way of limitation, a profile page corresponding to aparticular external webpage may be the particular external webpage andthe profile page may correspond to a particular concept node 204.Profile pages may be viewable by all or a selected subset of otherusers. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user node 202 mayhave a corresponding user-profile page in which the corresponding usermay add content, make declarations, or otherwise express himself orherself. A business page may comprise a user-profile page for a commerceentity. As another example and not by way of limitation, a concept node204 may have a corresponding concept-profile page in which one or moreusers may add content, make declarations, or express themselves,particularly in relation to the concept corresponding to concept node204.

In particular embodiments, a concept node 204 may represent athird-party webpage or resource hosted by a third-party system. Thethird-party webpage or resource may include, among other elements,content, a selectable or other icon, or other inter-actable object(which may be implemented, for example, in JavaScript, AJAX, or PHPcodes) representing an action or activity. As an example and not by wayof limitation, a third-party webpage may include a selectable icon suchas “like,” “check in,” “eat,” “recommend,” or another suitable action oractivity. A user viewing the third-party webpage may perform an actionby selecting one of the icons (e.g., “eat”), causing a client system tosend to the social-networking system a message indicating the user'saction. In response to the message, the social-networking system maycreate an edge (e.g., an “eat” edge) between a user node 202corresponding to the user and a concept node 204 corresponding to thethird-party webpage or resource and store edge 206 in one or more datastores.

In particular embodiments, a pair of nodes in social graph 200 may beconnected to each other by one or more edges 206. An edge 206 connectinga pair of nodes may represent a relationship between the pair of nodes.In particular embodiments, an edge 206 may include or represent one ormore data objects or attributes corresponding to the relationshipbetween a pair of nodes. As an example and not by way of limitation, afirst user may indicate that a second user is a “friend” of the firstuser. In response to this indication, the social-networking system maysend a “friend request” to the second user. If the second user confirmsthe “friend request,” the social-networking system may create an edge206 connecting the first user's user node 202 to the second user's usernode 202 in social graph 200 and store edge 206 as social-graphinformation in one or more data stores. In the example of FIG. 2, socialgraph 200 includes an edge 206 indicating a friend relation between usernodes 202 of user “Amanda” and user “Dorothy.” Although this disclosuredescribes or illustrates particular edges 206 with particular attributesconnecting particular user nodes 202, this disclosure contemplates anysuitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes202. As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 206 mayrepresent a friendship, family relationship, business or employmentrelationship, fan relationship, follower relationship, visitorrelationship, subscriber relationship, superior/subordinaterelationship, reciprocal relationship, non-reciprocal relationship,another suitable type of relationship, or two or more suchrelationships. Moreover, although this disclosure generally describesnodes as being connected, this disclosure also describes users orconcepts as being connected. Herein, references to users or conceptsbeing connected may, where appropriate, refer to the nodes correspondingto those users or concepts being connected in social graph 200 by one ormore edges 206.

In particular embodiments, an edge 206 between a user node 202 and aconcept node 204 may represent a particular action or activity performedby a user associated with user node 202 toward a concept associated witha concept node 204. As an example and not by way of limitation, asillustrated in FIG. 2, a user may “like,” “attended,” “played,”“listened,” “cooked,” “worked at,” or “watched” a concept, each of whichmay correspond to a edge type or subtype. A concept-profile pagecorresponding to a concept node 204 may include, for example, aselectable “check in” icon (such as, for example, a clickable “check in”icon) or a selectable “add to favorites” icon. Similarly, after a userclicks these icons, the social-networking system may create a “favorite”edge or a “check in” edge in response to a user's action correspondingto a respective action. As another example and not by way of limitation,a user (user “Carla”) may listen to a particular song (“Across the Sea”)using a particular application (SPOTIFY, which is an online musicapplication). In this case, the social-networking system may create a“listened” edge 206 and a “used” edge (as illustrated in FIG. 2) betweenuser nodes 202 corresponding to the user and concept nodes 204corresponding to the song and application to indicate that the userlistened to the song and used the application. Moreover, thesocial-networking system may create a “played” edge 206 (as illustratedin FIG. 2) between concept nodes 204 corresponding to the song and theapplication to indicate that the particular song was played by theparticular application. In this case, “played” edge 206 corresponds toan action performed by an external application (SPOTIFY) on an externalaudio file (the song “Across the Sea”). Although this disclosuredescribes particular edges 206 with particular attributes connectinguser nodes 202 and concept nodes 204, this disclosure contemplates anysuitable edges 206 with any suitable attributes connecting user nodes202 and concept nodes 204. Moreover, although this disclosure describesedges between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 representing asingle relationship, this disclosure contemplates edges between a usernode 202 and a concept node 204 representing one or more relationships.As an example and not by way of limitation, an edge 206 may representboth that a user likes and has used at a particular concept.Alternatively, another edge 206 may represent each type of relationship(or multiples of a single relationship) between a user node 202 and aconcept node 204 (as illustrated in FIG. 2 between user node 202 foruser “Edwin” and concept node 204 for “SPOTIFY”).

In particular embodiments, the social-networking system may create anedge 206 between a user node 202 and a concept node 204 in social graph200. As an example and not by way of limitation, a user viewing aconcept-profile page (such as, for example, by using a web browser or aspecial-purpose application hosted by the user's client system) mayindicate that he or she likes the concept represented by the conceptnode 204 by clicking or selecting a “Like” icon, which may cause theuser's client system to send to the social-networking system a messageindicating the user's liking of the concept associated with theconcept-profile page. In response to the message, the social-networkingsystem may create an edge 206 between user node 202 associated with theuser and concept node 204, as illustrated by “like” edge 206 between theuser and concept node 204. In particular embodiments, thesocial-networking system may store an edge 206 in one or more datastores. In particular embodiments, an edge 206 may be automaticallyformed by the social-networking system in response to a particular useraction. As an example and not by way of limitation, if a first useruploads a picture, watches a movie, or listens to a song, an edge 206may be formed between user node 202 corresponding to the first user andconcept nodes 204 corresponding to those concepts. Although thisdisclosure describes forming particular edges 206 in particular manners,this disclosure contemplates forming any suitable edges 206 in anysuitable manner.

The social graph 200 may further comprise a plurality of product nodes.Product nodes may represent particular products that may be associatedwith a particular business. A business may provide a product catalog toa consumer-to-business service and the consumer-to-business service maytherefore represent each of the products within the product in thesocial graph 200 with each product being in a distinct product node. Aproduct node may comprise information relating to the product, such aspricing information, descriptive information, manufacturer information,availability information, and other relevant information. For example,each of the items on a menu for a restaurant may be represented withinthe social graph 200 with a product node describing each of the items. Aproduct node may be linked by an edge to the business providing theproduct. Where multiple businesses provide a product, each business mayhave a distinct product node associated with its providing of theproduct or may each link to the same product node. A product node may belinked by an edge to each user that has purchased, rated, owns,recommended, or viewed the product, with the edge describing the natureof the relationship (e.g., purchased, rated, owns, recommended, viewed,or other relationship). Each of the product nodes may be associated witha graph id and an associated merchant id by virtue of the linkedmerchant business. Products available from a business may therefore becommunicated to a user by retrieving the available product nodes linkedto the user node for the business within the social graph 200. Theinformation for a product node may be manipulated by thesocial-networking system as a product object that encapsulatesinformation regarding the referenced product.

FIG. 3A illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 300 with aprospective contacts display 305.

A client device 320 may correspond to any device used to access aprovisional contact promotion system 100. While in the illustratedembodiment of FIG. 3A the client device 320 resembles a smartphonedevice, it will be appreciated that the techniques described herein maybe used with any type of device. The user interface 300 may generallycorrespond to a display of a user inbox for a messaging system.

The user interface 300 may comprise a display of a plurality of threadsin an inbox for a user account. A portion of displayed threads may bethreads with unread messages 310. A portion of displayed threads may bethreads without unread messages 315. The threads with unread messages310 may be displayed with a higher prominence than the threads withoutunread messages 315, such as by placing them in a more prominentposition. In the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 3A, the user interface300 may be scrolled downwards to reveal more threads.

The threads with unread messages 310 may be displayed in a higherposition than the threads without unread messages 315, with additionalthreads without unread messages 315 being viewable by scrollingdownwards. In some cases, sufficient threads with unread messages 310may exist that the threads without unread messages 315 are only visibleby scrolling downwards, with the threads with unread messages 310 beingsufficient in number to take up all the available screen space in aninitial display of an inbox. The display of threads in an inbox maycomprise, for each thread, a display of a name of a thread, alast-received or last-exchanged messages in the thread, a preview of thecontents of the thread, and an avatar for one or more users in thethread. The name of the thread may correspond to the name(s) of one ormore participants in the thread other than the name for the user accountfor the inbox.

The user interface 300 for the messaging inbox may include a prospectivecontacts display 305. The prospective contacts display 305 may comprisea plurality of display elements, wherein each display elementcorresponds to a user of the messaging system that is being suggested asan additional contact for the user of the client device 320. Theprospective contacts display 305 may be displayed in a high-prominencearea of an inbox, such as the top of a display of the inbox. Theprospective contacts display 305 may be displayed in an initial view ofthe inbox. The initial view of the inbox may be the view reached whenloading a messaging client. The initial view of the inbox may be theview reached when selecting an inbox view control in the messagingclient.

FIG. 3B illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 325 with a contactadd dialog 330.

The selection of a particular prospective contact of the prospectivecontacts display 305 may initiate a process of adding the selectedprospective contact as a contact for the user of the client device 320for the user's user account with a messaging system. In someembodiments, the contact may be immediately added. In some embodiments,a contact add dialog 330 may be displayed, where the contact add dialog330 empowers a user to select whether they want to add a selectedprospective contact to their contact list.

A contact add dialog 330 may include a cancel control empowering theuser to refrain from adding the user as a contact and to extractthemselves from the contact add dialog 330. A contact add dialog 330 mayinclude an add contact control empower the user to add the user as acontact. Adding a user as a contact may initiate actions within amessaging system, such as updating a local contact store (e.g., anoperating-system managed address book) on the client device 320,updating a messaging-client-specific contact store for the messagingclient (i.e., an application-specific address book, which may bemaintained across multiple devices by the messaging system), initiatinga message thread with the added contact, and/or notifying the addedcontact that they've been added as a contact by the user of the clientdevice 320.

In some embodiments, a contact add dialog 330 may include informationregarding a selected prospective contact. Prospective contactinformation may include, without limitation, a photo, a name, and one ormore additional pieces of information regarding the contact, such as mayinclude information communicating one or more connections between theuser of the client device 320 and the prospective contact. Thisinformation may be presented as, for example, a user profile card for auser profile for the prospective contact with a social networkingsystem.

FIG. 3C illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 350 for a messagethread for an added contact on an adding client device 320.

The user interface 350 may be displayed in response to the user of theclient device 320 selecting a message thread with the added contact thathas been added to the inbox for the user account for the user. The userinterface 350 for the message thread may include a contact informationdisplay 364. The contact information display 364 may include a name andavatar for the contact with which the message thread is associated. Theavatar for a messaging bot may be a photo or other image visuallyrepresenting the contact. The contact information display 364 mayinclude one or more connections between the user of the client device320 and the contact, for example a shared school or a number of mutualfriends. In some embodiments, the contact information display 364 mayeventually be removed from the initial display of a message thread whenactivated once sufficient messages are received as to occupy its screenspace.

The user interface 350 for a message thread may include compositioncontrols 369 that are persistently visible during the display of amessage thread. Many, most, or nearly all of the composition controls369 may empower access to further user interface controls for theperformance of various tasks, such as text entry, media selection, emojiselection, camera use, a social approval icon, etc.

The user interface 350 for the message thread may comprise a messageinteraction display 363. The message interaction display 363 maycomprise the messages exchanged within the message thread. The messageinteraction display 363 may be initially empty due to no messages havingbeen exchanged at the time of the creation of the message thread.

However, in some embodiments, administrative text 365 may beautomatically displayed in a first access to a message thread with anadded contact for the user that added the contact. The administrativetext 365 may comprise a context for the message thread, communicatingthat the user of the client device 320 added the added contact that themessage thread is with as a contact with the messaging system.

FIG. 3D illustrates an embodiment of a user interface 375 for a messagethread for an added contact on a recipient client device 380.

The user interface 375 may be displayed in response to the user of therecipient client device 380 selecting a message thread with the userthat added them as a contact that has been added to the inbox for theadded contact. The user interface 375 may include a contact informationdisplay 384 substantially similar to the contact information display 364described with reference to FIG. 3C. The contact information display 384for the added contact, on their own client device, may displayinformation relating to the user that added them as a contact.

The user interface 375 may include composition controls 389 the same orsubstantially similar to the composition controls 369 described withreference to FIG. 3C. The user interface 375 may include a messageinteraction display 383 substantially similar to the message interactiondisplay 363 describes with reference to FIG. 3C. The message interactiondisplay 383 may include administrative text 385 that communicates acontext for the message thread, specifically that another user, withwhich the messages thread is associated, added the user of the recipientclient device 380 as a contact with the messaging system.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a provisional contact promotionsystem 100 processing a client inbox request.

The provisional contact promotion system 100 may comprise a plurality ofcomponents. The provisional contact promotion system 100 may beoperative to provide an ordered prospective contact list 490 to a clientdevice 420. The ordered prospective contact list 490 may configure theclient device 420 for display of the prospective contacts according toranking weights, the ranking weights determined according to a functionincluding a predicted communication interest representing a predictionof a user's interest in messaging with the suggested prospectivecontacts.

The provisional contact promotion system 100 may comprise a clientfront-end component 440. The client front-end component 440 may begenerally arranged to exchange information with client devices toempower the client devices to engage in messaging activity using amessaging system. The client front-end component 440 may provide accessto various messaging services and/or social-networking services. Theclient front-end component 440 may provide access to the retrieval of amessaging inbox. The client front-end component 440 may provide anordered prospective contact list 490 to a client device 420. Theretrieval of a messaging inbox may include the retrieval of the orderedprospective contact list 490 automatically or the ordered prospectivecontact list 490 may be performed via a distinct client inbox request410.

The client front-end component 440 may receive a client inbox request410 for a user account from a client device 420, the user account for acommunication system. The communication system may comprise a messagingsystem. A client inbox request 410 may be a request for updates to aninbox. Alternatively, a client inbox request 410 may be distinct from arequest for updates to an inbox. In some embodiments, a request for anordered prospective contact list 490 may be sent in coordination with arequest for updates to an inbox so as to empower the display of theordered prospective contact list 490 in association with an inbox.

The client front-end component 440 may transmit an ordered prospectivecontact list 490 to the client device 420 in response to the clientinbox request 410. The ordered prospective contact list 490 may beordered for display for the user account based on a determined rankingweight for each contact on the ordered prospective contact list 490. Theordered prospective contact list 490 may be ordered for display to theuser account in association with a messaging interface for thecommunication system.

In some cases, a client device 420 may engage in a user search. Theclient front-end component 440 may interact with the client device 420to support the user search. The client front-end component 440 maysuggest responses to the user search. The client front-end component 440may interact with the client device 420 to order a type-ahead for asearch entry form for the communication system based on the rankingweight.

The provisional contact promotion system 100 may comprise a prospectivecontact list component 450. The prospective contact list component 450may be generally arranged to retrieve and manage user information for auser account, such as may include contact information. The prospectivecontact list component 450 may be operative to determine a prospectivecontact list 455 for the user account, the prospective contact listcomprising a plurality of prospective contacts. The prospective contactlist component 450 may receive user information 445 from the clientfront-end component 440 identifying the user account for a client device420. For instance, the user information 445 may comprise a useridentifier uniquely identifying the user account.

The prospective contact list component 450 generates a prospectivecontact list 455 for the user account based on the user information 445.The prospective contact list component 450 uses one or more sources ofusers to generate a pool of users of potential interest to the user ofthe client device 420. The prospective contact list may be based on auser repository for the communication system. The prospective contactlist component 450 performs searches for specific relationships usingthe user repository, combines the results of the searches, and usesthese combined results as an initial list. Generating the prospectivecontact list 455 for the user account excludes any existing contactsfrom an existing contact list for the user account. Any existingcontacts for the user account are removed from the initial list togenerate the prospective contact list 455 used for ranking. Theprospective contact list may be generated based on a union of two ormore of a contact-of-contact list for the user account, a soft-matchlist for the user account, a reverse-contact list for the user account,and a short-message-service-match list for the user account.

The provisional contact promotion system 100 may comprise a predictedinterest component 460. The predicted interest component 460 may begenerally arranged to determine predicted communication interestinformation based on user information for users of the provisionalcontact promotion system 100. The user information may comprisesocial-networking information for a social-networking system, such asmay derived from a social graph 200. The predicted interest component460 determines a predicted communication interest for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list for the user account. Thepredicted interest component 460 may generate predicted interestinformation 465 for the user and the prospective contacts of theprospective contact list 455 and provide the predicted interestinformation 465 to the contact ranking component 480. The predictedinterest information 465 may be generated according to known techniquesfor generating predicted interest.

The predicted communication interest is generated based on a combinationof a variety of factors. These factors may represent various possiblerelationships between the user/user account and the prospective contact.The predicted communication interest may be based on two or more of: acontact-of-contact relationship for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list 455, a soft-match relationship for eachprospective contact of the prospective contact list 455, areverse-contact-list relationship for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list 455, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist 45.

The prospective contacts may be divided into broad divisions based onthe number of the above relationships that exist between the useraccount for the user of the client device 420 and each of theprospective contacts. Prospective contacts with only one of the listedrelationships are ranked below any of the prospective contacts with onlytwo of the listed relationships, which are ranked below any of theprospective contacts with only three of the listed relationships, whichare ranked below any of the prospective contacts all four of the listedrelationships. It will be appreciated that this technique may be usedfor any number of relationships. Where these same relationships are usedto generate the pool of prospective contacts, no prospective contactswill have zero of the relationships in common with the user account forthe user. However, whether additional prospective contacts are includedin the pool, some may fail to match any of the listed relationships.

As such, the predicted interest component 460 generates a relationshipcount for each prospective contact of the prospective contact list 455.The relationship count for each prospective contact measures whethereach prospective contact possesses each of a contact-of-contactrelationship, a soft-match relationship, a reverse-contact-listrelationship, and a short-message-service-match relationship. Thepredicted interest component 460 determines the ranking weight based onthe relationship count, at least in part. The prospective contact list455 may then be sub-ranked within each of the broader rankings definedby the listed relationships. The prospective contacts with equalrelationship count are ranked relative to a contact coefficient. Thiscontact coefficient is generated based on social-networking informationfrom a social-networking system, the contact coefficient measuring apredicted interest in a messaging relationship between the user accountand each of the prospective contacts.

A prospective contact has the contact-of-contact relationship with theuser account where the user account and the perspective contact have amutual contact in common. A messaging system may maintain a list of eachof the contacts for each user and may compare the list of contacts foreach user to determine common contacts between the lists. Theseprospective contacts with common contacts may be accordingly included inthe prospective contact list 455 and receive an additional relationshipcount when evaluating the prospective contact list 455.

A prospective contact has the soft-match relationship with the useraccount where an unverified predicted phone number for the user accountmatches a phone number address book for the prospective contact. A userwith a verified phone number—a phone number that the messaging systemhas verified as belonging to the user, such as through arequest-and-response phone number verification—may produce a hard matchwhen the user's phone number is in another user's phone address book.However, where the phone number hasn't been verified, a soft-match maybe made based on detected associations between the user and the phonenumber. For example, if a user's name, or a name detected to besignificantly similar to the user's name, appears in an address book inassociation with the phone number. This soft-match relationship may beassigned a strength or weight based on a confidence in the match. Thisstrength may be higher where a name more precisely matches, moreuniquely matches, or is matched based on more user accounts for themessaging system. These prospective contacts with a soft-matchrelationship may be accordingly included in the prospective contact list455 and receive an additional relationship count when evaluating theprospective contact list 455.

A prospective contact has the reverse-contact-list relationship with theuser account where the user account appears on a contact list for theprospective contact. The prospective contacts with areverse-contact-list relationship may be accordingly included in theprospective contact list 455 and receive an additional relationshipcount when evaluating the prospective contact list 455.

A prospective contact has the short-message-service-match relationshipwith the user account where a short-message-service log for at least oneof the user account and the prospective contact indicates an exchange ofshort-message-service messages between a first client device associatedwith the user account and a second client device associated with theprospective contact. These prospective contacts with ashort-message-service-match relationship may be accordingly included inthe prospective contact list 455 and receive an additional relationshipcount when evaluating the prospective contact list 455.

Machine learning may be used to determine a user's predictedcommunication interest for each prospective contact. A messaging historyfor a messaging system may be used to match profile features for usersto features for other users to predict a user's interest incommunication with a user. A predicted interest component 460 mayreceive one or more features for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list 455 and receive one or more profile featuresfor one or more users of the messaging system. The predicted interestcomponent 460 may receive a messaging history for the messaging system,with the messaging history comprising historical information aboutvarious users engagement with other users via the messaging system. Thepredicted interest component 460 may generate a predicted communicationinterest model for the messaging system based on a machine learninganalysis of the messaging history, with the predicted communicationinterest model based on the one or more profile features and the one ormore user features. The predicted interest component 460 may thereafterdetermine the predicted communication interest for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list 455 based on the predictedcommunication interest model.

The predicted communication interest model may comprise a linearfunction combining various measures corresponding to variousrelationships that may be shared between two users as well as additionalinformation relating to the two users. For instance, the predictedcommunication interest may be based on a linear function of two or moreof a contact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, a short-message-service-matchrelationship, and a contact coefficient, wherein the contact coefficientis generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system.

The contact-of-contact relationship may correspond to acontact-of-contact count. The contact-of-contact count is equal to acount of mutual contacts. The predicted communication interest increaseslinearly with the contact-of-contact count.

The soft-match relationship may increase relative to a recency withwhich an unverified predicted phone number for the user account wasadded to a phone number address book for a prospective contact.Additionally or alternatively, the soft-match relationship increasesrelative to a soft-match confidence.

The short-message-service-match relationship for a prospective contactmay increase relative to a number of short-message-service messagesassociated with both the user account and the prospective contact.

The linear function may be determined based on a linear regression of ahistorical data set for the communication system. This linear regressionis based on the predicted communication interest model. This predictedcommunication interest model may predict one or more of an existence ofcommunication interaction between the user account and a prospectivecontact, a duration of communication interaction between the useraccount and the prospective contact, a user contact future communicationactivity measure, and a user contact future engagement measure, withoutlimitation. The prediction of a measure corresponds to probabilitiesgenerated based on the historical analysis of previous user behaviorwith the communication system. A linear regression optimizes for aparticular measure, such as the measures listed herein. The linearregression may optimize for a combination of measures, such as a linearfunction of two or more of the measures listed herein.

A contact ranking component 480 may determine a ranking weight for eachprospective contact on the prospective contact list 455 based onpredicted communication interest for each prospective contact. In somecases, the predicted communication interests may each comprise anumerical score, this numerical score used as the ranking weight. Thecontact ranking component 480 may order the prospective contact list 455for display for the user account based on the determined ranking weightfor each prospective contact on the prospective contact list 455 togenerate the ordered prospective contact list 490.

In some cases, the ranking weight may be reduced for one or morepreviously-viewed prospective contacts of the prospective contact list455. The ranking weight may be reduced for the one or morepreviously-viewed prospective contacts by a linear multiplier based on anumber of viewings. The contact ranking component 480 may track thenumber of times a contact is included in a prospective contact list 455and use this number as the number of viewings. Alternatively, the clientdevice 420 may track the number of times a prospective contact isactually displayed to the user and provide it to the provisional contactpromotion system 100 for use as the number of viewings.

In another alternative, previously-viewed prospective contacts may beexcluded, possibly temporarily, from the displayed provisional contactlist rather than down-ranked. The prospective contact list component 450may exclude one or more previously-viewed prospective contacts from theprospective contact list when generating the prospective contact list.The one or more previously-viewed prospective contacts may be excludedfrom the prospective contact list based on a recentness with which theone or more previously-viewed prospective contacts had been viewed.Alternatively or additionally, one or more previously-viewed prospectivecontacts may be excluded from the prospective contact list based on acount of the number of times with which the one or morepreviously-viewed prospective contacts had been viewed, such that aprospective contact has a set number of times it may be viewed beforebeing excluded. Exclusions may be temporary and expire, after which, forinstance, a viewed-count may be reset.

In some embodiments, the prospective contact list 455 may only bedisplayed where sufficient interest is predicted for the prospectivecontacts on the prospective contact list 455. An aggregate, cumulative,average, maximum, or other collective measure of the prospective contactlist 455 may be generated. In these embodiments, the prospective contactlist 455 is only sent to the client device 420 and/or is sent to theclient device 420 but only displayed on the client device 420 where thecollective measure exceeds a defined threshold. In general, theprovisional contact promotion system 100 may determine whether todisplay the prospective contact list 455 based on a predicted contactlist utility, where the predicted contact list utility predicts anexpected utility to the user in being shown the prospective contact list455. The expected utility may vary based on the number of contacts for auser, such by reducing the expected utility where a user already has alarge, such as predefined, number of contacts already. The expectedutility may vary based on the number of active contacts for a user, suchby reducing the expected utility where a user already has a large, suchas predefined, number of active contacts already. An active contact maycomprise a contact with which

The prospective contact list 455 may be periodically re-generated and/orre-ranked. In some embodiments, the provisional contact promotion system100 may re-rank the prospective contact list based on a periodicschedule. In some embodiments, the provisional contact promotion system100 may re-rank the prospective contact list 455 in response to amembership change for the prospective contact list 455, such as wherethe pool of users from which the prospective contacts are drawn gains anadditional member.

Each prospective contact on the prospective contact list is operative toempower a user to add the contact, perhaps after one or more additionalinteractions. In some embodiments, selecting a prospective contact in amessaging client may open a contact add dialog for the prospectivecontact when selected. The provisional contact promotion system 100 mayreceive a contact request confirmation based on the contact add dialogand send a contact addition notification to a prospective contactassociated with the contact add dialog.

The provisional contact promotion system 100 may receive a contactrequest confirmation based on a contact add dialog and generate amessage thread between the user account and a prospective contact basedon the contact request confirmation for the contact add dialog for theprospective contact. The provisional contact promotion system 100 mayset notification text, such as administrative text, for the messagethread between the user account and the prospective contact, thenotification text indicating a contact request from the user account tothe prospective contact. This message thread may be generated on aclient device for one or more of the user account and the prospectivecontact.

The suggestion of a prospective contact may result in the initiation ofcommunication between the user and the prospective contact. The clientfront-end component 440 may receive a communication initiation from theuser account. This communication initiation is addressed to a particularaddress. Because the prospective contact was selected for the user, theuser's initiation of communication is highly unlikely to be spam,unwanted commercial communication. As such, where the communicationinitiation is addressed to selected prospective contact from theprospective contact list, the client front-end component 440 may bypassa spam detection system for the communication system in relay of thecommunication initiation in response to the communication initiationbeing addressed to the selected prospective contact from the prospectivecontact list 455.

Included herein is a set of flow charts representative of exemplarymethodologies for performing novel aspects of the disclosedarchitecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the oneor more methodologies shown herein, for example, in the form of a flowchart or flow diagram, are shown and described as a series of acts, itis to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are notlimited by the order of acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith,occur in a different order and/or concurrently with other acts from thatshown and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art willunderstand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively berepresented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in astate diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a methodology maybe required for a novel implementation.

FIG. 5 illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow 500. The logic flow500 may be representative of some or all of the operations executed byone or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 5, the logic flow 500 maydetermine a prospective contact list for a user account for acommunication system, the prospective contact list comprising aplurality of prospective contacts at block 502.

The logic flow 500 may determine a predicted communication interest foreach prospective contact on the prospective contact list for the useraccount at block 504.

The logic flow 500 may determine a ranking weight for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list based on the predictedcommunication interest for each prospective contact at block 506.

The logic flow 500 may order the prospective contact list for displayfor the user account based on the determined ranking weight for eachprospective contact on the prospective contact list at block 508.

The embodiments are not limited to this example.

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system 600. Thecentralized system 600 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the provisional contact promotion system 100 in a singlecomputing entity, such as entirely within a single centralized serverdevice 650.

The centralized server device 650 may comprise any electronic devicecapable of receiving, processing, and sending information for theprovisional contact promotion system 100. Examples of an electronicdevice may include without limitation an ultra-mobile device, a mobiledevice, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, asmart phone, a telephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone,ebook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messagingdevice, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheldcomputer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, aweb server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, amini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a networkappliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics,programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digitaltelevision, set top box, wireless access point, base station, subscriberstation, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router,hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof. Theembodiments are not limited in this context.

The centralized server device 650 may execute processing operations orlogic for the provisional contact promotion system 100 using aprocessing component 630. The processing component 630 may comprisevarious hardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both.Examples of hardware elements may include devices, logic devices,components, processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits,circuit elements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors,and so forth), integrated circuits, application specific integratedcircuits (ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signalprocessors (DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units,logic gates, registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chipsets, and so forth. Examples of software elements may include softwarecomponents, programs, applications, computer programs, applicationprograms, system programs, software development programs, machineprograms, operating system software, middleware, firmware, softwaremodules, routines, subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, softwareinterfaces, application program interfaces (API), instruction sets,computing code, computer code, code segments, computer code segments,words, values, symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whetheran embodiment is implemented using hardware elements and/or softwareelements may vary in accordance with any number of factors, such asdesired computational rate, power levels, heat tolerances, processingcycle budget, input data rates, output data rates, memory resources,data bus speeds and other design or performance constraints, as desiredfor a given implementation.

The centralized server device 650 may execute communications operationsor logic for the provisional contact promotion system 100 usingcommunications component 640. The communications component 640 mayimplement any well-known communications techniques and protocols, suchas techniques suitable for use with packet-switched networks (e.g.,public networks such as the Internet, private networks such as anenterprise intranet, and so forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., thepublic switched telephone network), or a combination of packet-switchednetworks and circuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways andtranslators). The communications component 640 may include various typesof standard communication elements, such as one or more communicationsinterfaces, network interfaces, network interface cards (NIC), radios,wireless transmitters/receivers (transceivers), wired and/or wirelesscommunication media, physical connectors, and so forth. By way ofexample, and not limitation, communication media 612 includes wiredcommunications media and wireless communications media. Examples ofwired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads,printed circuit boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductormaterial, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagatedsignal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media mayinclude acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and otherwireless media.

The centralized server device 650 may communicate with other devicesover a communications media 612 using communications signals 614 via thecommunications component 640. The devices may be internal or external tothe centralized server device 650 as desired for a given implementation.

The centralized server device 650 may execute a messaging server 610.The messaging server 610 may comprise a messaging server for a messagingsystem, such as a messaging server performing messaging server functionsas described for the messaging servers 110 in reference to FIG. 1. Themessaging server 610 may provide messaging operations for a plurality ofclient devices 620, receiving and sending messages between the clientdevices 620. The client devices 620 may correspond to one or more of asmartphone device 150, tablet device 160, personal computer device 180,and/or any of the client device 320, recipient client device 380, clientdevice 420, or any other client device.

FIG. 7 illustrates a block diagram of a distributed system 700. Thedistributed system 700 may distribute portions of the structure and/oroperations for the provisional contact promotion system 100 acrossmultiple computing entities. Examples of distributed system 700 mayinclude without limitation a client-server architecture, a 3-tierarchitecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clusteredarchitecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture,a shared database architecture, and other types of distributed systems.The embodiments are not limited in this context.

The distributed system 700 may comprise a plurality of messaging serverdevices 750. In general, the server devices 750 may be the same orsimilar to the centralized server device 650 as described with referenceto FIG. 6. For instance, the server devices 750 may each comprise aprocessing component 730 and a communications component 740 which arethe same or similar to the processing component 630 and thecommunications component 640, respectively, as described with referenceto FIG. 6. In another example, the server devices 750 may communicateover a communications media 712 using communications signals 714 via thecommunications components 740.

The messaging server devices 750 may comprise or employ one or moreserver programs that operate to perform various methodologies inaccordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, forexample, the messaging server devices 750 may each execute one of aplurality of messaging servers 710. The messaging servers 710 maycomprise messaging servers for a messaging system, such as a messagingservers performing messaging server functions as described for themessaging servers 110 in reference to FIG. 1. The messaging servers 710may provide messaging operations for a plurality of client devices 720,receiving and sending messages between the client devices 720. Theclient devices 720 may correspond to one or more of a smartphone device150, tablet device 160, personal computer device 180, and/or any of theclient device 320, recipient client device 380, client device 420,client devices 620, or any other client device.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture800 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previouslydescribed. In one embodiment, the computing architecture 800 maycomprise or be implemented as part of an electronic device. Examples ofan electronic device may include those described with reference to FIG.8, among others. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” areintended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, acombination of hardware and software, software, or software inexecution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computingarchitecture 800. For example, a component can be, but is not limited tobeing, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive,multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), anobject, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or acomputer. By way of illustration, both an application running on aserver and the server can be a component. One or more components canreside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component canbe localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or morecomputers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to eachother by various types of communications media to coordinate operations.The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directionalexchange of information. For instance, the components may communicateinformation in the form of signals communicated over the communicationsmedia. The information can be implemented as signals allocated tovarious signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal.Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages.Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplaryconnections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and businterfaces.

The computing architecture 800 includes various common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth.The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by thecomputing architecture 800.

As shown in FIG. 8, the computing architecture 800 comprises aprocessing unit 804, a system memory 806 and a system bus 808. Theprocessing unit 804 can be any of various commercially availableprocessors, including without limitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® andOpteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded and secure processors;IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony®Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core (2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®,Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similar processors. Dualmicroprocessors, multi-core processors, and other multi-processorarchitectures may also be employed as the processing unit 804.

The system bus 808 provides an interface for system componentsincluding, but not limited to, the system memory 806 to the processingunit 804. The system bus 808 can be any of several types of busstructure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or withouta memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of avariety of commercially available bus architectures. Interface adaptersmay connect to the system bus 808 via a slot architecture. Example slotarchitectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port(AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA),Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer MemoryCard International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The computing architecture 800 may comprise or implement variousarticles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may comprise acomputer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of acomputer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capableof storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatilememory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasablememory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples oflogic may include executable computer program instructions implementedusing any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code,interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code,object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also beat least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on anon-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executedby one or more processors to enable performance of the operationsdescribed herein.

The system memory 806 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information. In the illustratedembodiment shown in FIG. 8, the system memory 806 can includenon-volatile memory 810 and/or volatile memory 812. A basic input/outputsystem (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile memory 810.

The computer 802 may include various types of computer-readable storagemedia in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including aninternal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 814, a magnetic floppy diskdrive (FDD) 816 to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk 818,and an optical disk drive 820 to read from or write to a removableoptical disk 822 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD 814, FDD 816 andoptical disk drive 820 can be connected to the system bus 808 by a HDDinterface 824, an FDD interface 826 and an optical drive interface 828,respectively. The HDD interface 824 for external drive implementationscan include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1394 interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatileand/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executableinstructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules canbe stored in the drives and memory units 810, 812, including anoperating system 830, one or more application programs 832, otherprogram modules 834, and program data 836. In one embodiment, the one ormore application programs 832, other program modules 834, and programdata 836 can include, for example, the various applications and/orcomponents of the provisional contact promotion system 100.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 802 throughone or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard 838 anda pointing device, such as a mouse 840. Other input devices may includemicrophones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remotecontrols, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger printreaders, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers,touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs,trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other inputdevices are often connected to the processing unit 804 through an inputdevice interface 842 that is coupled to the system bus 808, but can beconnected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serialport, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A monitor 844 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 808 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 846. Themonitor 844 may be internal or external to the computer 802. In additionto the monitor 844, a computer typically includes other peripheraloutput devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computer 802 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections via wire and/or wireless communications to one or moreremote computers, such as a remote computer 848. The remote computer 848can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer,portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peerdevice or other common network node, and typically includes many or allof the elements described relative to the computer 802, although, forpurposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 850 is illustrated.The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless connectivity to alocal area network (LAN) 852 and/or larger networks, for example, a widearea network (WAN) 854. Such LAN and WAN networking environments arecommonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-widecomputer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to aglobal communications network, for example, the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 802 is connectedto the LAN 852 through a wire and/or wireless communication networkinterface or adaptor 856. The adaptor 856 can facilitate wire and/orwireless communications to the LAN 852, which may also include awireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with thewireless functionality of the adaptor 856.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 802 can includea modem 858, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 854,or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 854,such as by way of the Internet. The modem 858, which can be internal orexternal and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus808 via the input device interface 842. In a networked environment,program modules depicted relative to the computer 802, or portionsthereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 850. It willbe appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary andother means of establishing a communications link between the computerscan be used.

The computer 802 is operable to communicate with wire and wirelessdevices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of standards, such aswireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g.,IEEE 802.8 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at leastWi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wirelesstechnologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefinedstructure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoccommunication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radiotechnologies called IEEE 802.8x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure,reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used toconnect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks(which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).

FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary communicationsarchitecture 900 suitable for implementing various embodiments aspreviously described. The communications architecture 900 includesvarious common communications elements, such as a transmitter, receiver,transceiver, radio, network interface, baseband processor, antenna,amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments,however, are not limited to implementation by the communicationsarchitecture 900.

As shown in FIG. 9, the communications architecture 900 comprisesincludes one or more clients 902 and servers 904. The clients 902 maycorrespond to messaging clients executed by one or more client devices,such as one or more of a smartphone device 150, tablet device 160,personal computer device 180, and/or any of the client device 320,recipient client device 380, client device 420, client devices 620,client devices 720, or any other client device. The servers 904 mayimplement messaging servers, such as messaging server 610, messagingservers 110, or messaging servers 710. The clients 902 and the servers904 are operatively connected to one or more respective client datastores 908 and server data stores 910 that can be employed to storeinformation local to the respective clients 902 and servers 904, such ascookies and/or associated contextual information.

The clients 902 and the servers 904 may communicate information betweeneach other using a communication framework 906. The communicationsframework 906 may implement any well-known communications techniques andprotocols. The communications framework 906 may be implemented as apacket-switched network (e.g., public networks such as the Internet,private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), acircuit-switched network (e.g., the public switched telephone network),or a combination of a packet-switched network and a circuit-switchednetwork (with suitable gateways and translators).

The communications framework 906 may implement various networkinterfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to acommunications network. A network interface may be regarded as aspecialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces mayemploy connection protocols including without limitation direct connect,Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T, and thelike), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.11a-x network interfaces, IEEE 802.16 networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.20 network interfaces, and the like. Further,multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with variouscommunications network types. For example, multiple network interfacesmay be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast,multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing requirements dictatea greater amount speed and capacity, distributed network controllerarchitectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, andotherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by clients 902and the servers 904. A communications network may be any one and thecombination of wired and/or wireless networks including withoutlimitation a direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, aprivate network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g.,the Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network(LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as Nodeson the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless network, acellular network, and other communications networks.

FIG. 10 illustrates an embodiment of a device 1000 for use in amulticarrier OFDM system, such as the provisional contact promotionsystem 100. Device 1000 may implement, for example, software components1060 as described with reference to provisional contact promotion system100 and/or a logic circuit 1035. The logic circuit 1035 may includephysical circuits to perform operations described for the provisionalcontact promotion system 100. As shown in FIG. 10, device 1000 mayinclude a radio interface 1010, baseband circuitry 1020, and computingplatform 1030, although embodiments are not limited to thisconfiguration.

The device 1000 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the provisional contact promotion system 100 and/or logiccircuit 1035 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within asingle device. Alternatively, the device 1000 may distribute portions ofthe structure and/or operations for the provisional contact promotionsystem 100 and/or logic circuit 1035 across multiple computing entitiesusing a distributed system architecture, such as a client-serverarchitecture, a 3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, atightly-coupled or clustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture,a master-slave architecture, a shared database architecture, and othertypes of distributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in thiscontext.

In one embodiment, radio interface 1010 may include a component orcombination of components adapted for transmitting and/or receivingsingle carrier or multi-carrier modulated signals (e.g., includingcomplementary code keying (CCK) and/or orthogonal frequency divisionmultiplexing (OFDM) symbols) although the embodiments are not limited toany specific over-the-air interface or modulation scheme. Radiointerface 1010 may include, for example, a receiver 1012, a transmitter1016 and/or a frequency synthesizer 1014. Radio interface 1010 mayinclude bias controls, a crystal oscillator and/or one or more antennas1018. In another embodiment, radio interface 1010 may use externalvoltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), surface acoustic wave filters,intermediate frequency (IF) filters and/or RF filters, as desired. Dueto the variety of potential RF interface designs an expansivedescription thereof is omitted.

Baseband circuitry 1020 may communicate with radio interface 1010 toprocess receive and/or transmit signals and may include, for example, ananalog-to-digital converter 1022 for down converting received signals, adigital-to-analog converter 1024 for up converting signals fortransmission. Further, baseband circuitry 1020 may include a baseband orphysical layer (PHY) processing circuit 1056 for PHY link layerprocessing of respective receive/transmit signals. Baseband circuitry1020 may include, for example, a processing circuit 1028 for mediumaccess control (MAC)/data link layer processing. Baseband circuitry 1020may include a memory controller 1032 for communicating with processingcircuit 1028 and/or a computing platform 1030, for example, via one ormore interfaces 1034.

In some embodiments, PHY processing circuit 1026 may include a frameconstruction and/or detection module, in combination with additionalcircuitry such as a buffer memory, to construct and/or deconstructcommunication frames, such as radio frames. Alternatively or inaddition, MAC processing circuit 1028 may share processing for certainof these functions or perform these processes independent of PHYprocessing circuit 1026. In some embodiments, MAC and PHY processing maybe integrated into a single circuit.

The computing platform 1030 may provide computing functionality for thedevice 1000. As shown, the computing platform 1030 may include aprocessing component 1040. In addition to, or alternatively of, thebaseband circuitry 1020, the device 1000 may execute processingoperations or logic for the provisional contact promotion system 100 andlogic circuit 1035 using the processing component 1040. The processingcomponent 1040 (and/or PHY 1026 and/or MAC 1028) may comprise varioushardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examplesof hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components,processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuitelements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and soforth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits(ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors(DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates,registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and soforth. Examples of software elements may include software components,programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, systemprograms, software development programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and otherdesign or performance constraints, as desired for a givenimplementation.

The computing platform 1030 may further include other platformcomponents 1050. Other platform components 1050 include common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components (e.g., digital displays), powersupplies, and so forth. Examples of memory units may include withoutlimitation various types of computer readable and machine readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information.

Device 1000 may be, for example, an ultra-mobile device, a mobiledevice, a fixed device, a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, atelephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, user equipment,eBook readers, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messagingdevice, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheldcomputer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, aweb server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, amini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a networkappliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics,programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digitaltelevision, set top box, wireless access point, base station, node B,evolved node B (eNB), subscriber station, mobile subscriber center,radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine,or combination thereof. Accordingly, functions and/or specificconfigurations of device 1000 described herein, may be included oromitted in various embodiments of device 1000, as suitably desired. Insome embodiments, device 1000 may be configured to be compatible withprotocols and frequencies associated one or more of the 3GPP LTESpecifications and/or IEEE 1002.16 Standards for WMANs, and/or otherbroadband wireless networks, cited herein, although the embodiments arenot limited in this respect.

Embodiments of device 1000 may be implemented using single input singleoutput (SISO) architectures. However, certain implementations mayinclude multiple antennas (e.g., antennas 1018) for transmission and/orreception using adaptive antenna techniques for beamforming or spatialdivision multiple access (SDMA) and/or using MIMO communicationtechniques.

The components and features of device 1000 may be implemented using anycombination of discrete circuitry, application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), logic gates and/or single chip architectures. Further,the features of device 1000 may be implemented using microcontrollers,programmable logic arrays and/or microprocessors or any combination ofthe foregoing where suitably appropriate. It is noted that hardware,firmware and/or software elements may be collectively or individuallyreferred to herein as “logic” or “circuit.”

It should be appreciated that the exemplary device 1000 shown in theblock diagram of FIG. 10 may represent one functionally descriptiveexample of many potential implementations. Accordingly, division,omission or inclusion of block functions depicted in the accompanyingfigures does not infer that the hardware components, circuits, softwareand/or elements for implementing these functions would be necessarily bedivided, omitted, or included in embodiments.

A computer-implemented method may comprise determining a prospectivecontact list for a user account for a communication system, theprospective contact list comprising a plurality of prospective contacts;determining a predicted communication interest for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list for the user account;determining a ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list based on the predicted communication interestfor each prospective contact; and ordering the prospective contact listfor display for the user account based on the determined ranking weightfor each prospective contact on the prospective contact list.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise determining whetherto display the prospective contact list based on a predicted contactlist utility.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise re-ranking theprospective contact list based on a periodic schedule.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise re-ranking theprospective contact list in response to a membership change for theprospective contact list.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise generating theprospective contact list based on a user repository for thecommunication system, wherein generating the prospective contact listfor the user account excludes any existing contacts from an existingcontact list for the user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise ordering thepromotion contact list for display to the user account in associationwith a messaging interface for the communication system.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein the predictedcommunication interest is based on two or more of a contact-of-contactrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist, a soft-match relationship for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list, a reverse-contact-list relationship for eachprospective contact of the prospective contact list, and ashort-message-service-match relationship for each prospective contact ofthe prospective contact list.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise generating arelationship count for each prospective contact of the prospectivecontact list, wherein the relationship count for each prospectivecontact measures whether each prospective contact possesses each of acontact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship; and determining the ranking weight based on therelationship count.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein a prospectivecontact has the contact-of-contact relationship with the user accountwhere the user account and the perspective contact have a mutual contactin common.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein a prospectivecontact has the soft-match relationship with the user account where anunverified predicted phone number for the user account matches a phonenumber address book for the prospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein a prospectivecontact has the reverse-contact-list relationship with the user accountwhere the user account appears on a contact list for the prospectivecontact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein a prospectivecontact has the short-message-service-match relationship with the useraccount where a short-message-service log for at least one of the useraccount and the prospective contact indicates an exchange ofshort-message-service messages between a first client device associatedwith the user account and a second client device associated with theprospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein prospectivecontacts with equal relationship count are ranked relative to a contactcoefficient, wherein the contact coefficient is generated based onsocial-networking information from a social-networking system.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein theprospective contact list is generated based on a union of two or more ofa contact-of-contact list for the user account, a soft-match list forthe user account, a reverse-contact list for the user account, and ashort-message-service-match list for the user account.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein the predictedcommunication interest is based on a linear function of two or more of acontact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, a short-message-service-matchrelationship, and a contact coefficient, wherein the contact coefficientis generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein thecontact-of-contact relationship corresponds to a contact-of-contactcount, the contact-of-contact count equal to a count of mutual contacts,wherein the predicted communication interest increases linearly with thecontact-of-contact count.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein thesoft-match relationship increases relative to a recency with which anunverified predicted phone number for the user account was added to aphone number address book for a prospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein thesoft-match relationship increases relative to a soft-match confidence.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein theshort-message-service-match relationship for a prospective contactincreases relative to a number of short-message-service messagesassociated with both the user account and the prospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the linear functiondetermined based on a linear regression of a historical data set for thecommunication system.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the linear regressionbased on a predicted communication interest model, the predictedcommunication interest model predicting one or more of an existence ofcommunication interaction between the user account and a prospectivecontact, a duration of communication interaction between the useraccount and the prospective contact, a user contact future communicationactivity measure, and a user contact future engagement measure.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the ranking weightreduced for one or more previously-viewed prospective contacts of theprospective contact list.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the ranking weightreduced for the one or more previously-viewed contacts by a linearmultiplier based on a number of viewings.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise excluding one or morepreviously-viewed prospective contacts from the prospective contact listwhen generating the prospective contact list.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein the one ormore previously-viewed prospective contacts are excluded from theprospective contact list based on a recentness with which the one ormore previously-viewed prospective contacts had been viewed.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein eachprospective contact on the prospective contact list is operative to opena contact add dialog for the prospective contact when selected.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving a contactrequest confirmation based on the contact add dialog; and sending acontact addition notification to a prospective contact associated withthe contact add dialog.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving a contactrequest confirmation based on the contact add dialog; generating amessage thread between the user account and a prospective contact basedon the contact request confirmation for the contact add dialog for theprospective contact; and setting notification text for the messagethread between the user account and the prospective contact, thenotification text indicating a contact request from the user account tothe prospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the message threadgenerated on a client device for one or more of the user account and theprospective contact.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise receiving acommunication initiation from the user account, the communicationinitiation addressed to a selected prospective contact from theprospective contact list; and bypassing a spam detection system for thecommunication system in relay of the communication initiation inresponse to the communication initiation being addressed to the selectedprospective contact from the prospective contact list.

An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a clientfront-end component operative on the processor circuit to receive aclient inbox request for a user account from a client device, the useraccount for a communication system; and send an ordered prospectivecontact list to the client device in response to the client inboxrequest, the ordered prospective contact list ordered for display forthe user account based on a determined ranking weight for eachprospective contact on the ordered prospective contact list; aprospective contact list component operative to generate a prospectivecontact list for a user account for a communication system based on auser repository for the communication system, the prospective contactlist comprising a plurality of prospective contacts, wherein generatingthe prospective contact list for the user account excludes any existingcontacts from an existing contact list for the user account; a predictedinterest component operative to determine a predicted communicationinterest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact listfor the user account; and a contact ranking component operative todetermine a ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list based on the predicted communication interestfor each prospective contact list. The apparatus may be operative toimplement any of the computer-implemented methods described herein.

At least one computer-readable storage medium may comprise instructionsthat, when executed, cause a system to perform any of thecomputer-implemented methods described herein.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “one embodiment”or “an embodiment” along with their derivatives. These terms mean that aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connectionwith the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Theappearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in thespecification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression“coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms arenot necessarily intended as synonyms for each other. For example, someembodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or“coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physicalor electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, mayalso mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with eachother, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, thedetailed descriptions herein may be presented in terms of programprocedures executed on a computer or network of computers. Theseprocedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled inthe art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to othersskilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistentsequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations arethose requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually,though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical,magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred,combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient attimes, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to thesesignals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers,or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similarterms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities andare merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms,such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mentaloperations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a humanoperator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of theoperations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments.Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines forperforming operations of various embodiments include general purposedigital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performingthese operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer asselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently relatedto a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposemachines may be used with programs written in accordance with theteachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct morespecialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The requiredstructure for a variety of these machines will appear from thedescription given.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided toallow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technicaldisclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not beused to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Inaddition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen thatvarious features are grouped together in a single embodiment for thepurpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is notto be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimedembodiments require more features than are expressly recited in eachclaim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matterlies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thusthe following claims are hereby incorporated into the DetailedDescription, with each claim standing on its own as a separateembodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which”are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms“comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,”“second,” “third,” and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are notintended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

What has been described above includes examples of the disclosedarchitecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe everyconceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one ofordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinationsand permutations are possible. Accordingly, the novel architecture isintended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variationsthat fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:determining a prospective contact list for a user account for acommunication system, the prospective contact list comprising aplurality of prospective contacts; determining a predicted communicationinterest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact listfor the user account; determining a ranking weight for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list based on the predictedcommunication interest for each prospective contact; and ordering theprospective contact list for display for the user account based on thedetermined ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:generating the prospective contact list based on a user repository forthe communication system, wherein generating the prospective contactlist for the user account excludes any existing contacts from anexisting contact list for the user account.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising: ordering the promotion contact list for display tothe user account in association with a messaging interface for thecommunication system.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the predictedcommunication interest is based on two or more of a contact-of-contactrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist, a soft-match relationship for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list, a reverse-contact-list relationship for eachprospective contact of the prospective contact list, and ashort-message-service-match relationship for each prospective contact ofthe prospective contact list.
 5. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: generating a relationship count for each prospective contactof the prospective contact list, wherein the relationship count for eachprospective contact measures whether each prospective contact possesseseach of a contact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship; and determining the ranking weight based on therelationship count.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein prospectivecontacts with equal relationship count are ranked relative to a contactcoefficient, wherein the contact coefficient is generated based onsocial-networking information from a social-networking system.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the prospective contact list is generatedbased on a union of two or more of a contact-of-contact list for theuser account, a soft-match list for the user account, a reverse-contactlist for the user account, and a short-message-service-match list forthe user account.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the predictedcommunication interest is based on a linear function of two or more of acontact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, a short-message-service-matchrelationship, and a contact coefficient, wherein the contact coefficientis generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system.
 9. The method of claim 8, the linear functiondetermined based on a linear regression of a historical data set for thecommunication system.
 10. The method of claim 9, the linear regressionbased on a predicted communication interest model, the predictedcommunication interest model predicting one or more of an existence ofcommunication interaction between the user account and a prospectivecontact, a duration of communication interaction between the useraccount and the prospective contact, a user contact future communicationactivity measure, and a user contact future engagement measure.
 11. Anapparatus, comprising: a processor circuit on a device; a clientfront-end component operative on the processor circuit to receive aclient inbox request for a user account from a client device, the useraccount for a communication system; and send an ordered prospectivecontact list to the client device in response to the client inboxrequest, the ordered prospective contact list ordered for display forthe user account based on a determined ranking weight for eachprospective contact on the ordered prospective contact list; aprospective contact list component operative to generate a prospectivecontact list for a user account for a communication system based on auser repository for the communication system, the prospective contactlist comprising a plurality of prospective contacts, wherein generatingthe prospective contact list for the user account excludes any existingcontacts from an existing contact list for the user account; a predictedinterest component operative to determine a predicted communicationinterest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact listfor the user account; and a contact ranking component operative todetermine a ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list based on the predicted communication interestfor each prospective contact list.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11,wherein the predicted communication interest is based on two or more ofa contact-of-contact relationship for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list, a soft-match relationship for each prospectivecontact of the prospective contact list, a reverse-contact-listrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist, and a short-message-service-match relationship for eachprospective contact of the prospective contact list.
 13. The apparatusof claim 11, further comprising: the predicted interest componentoperative to generate a relationship count for each prospective contactof the prospective contact list, wherein the relationship count for eachprospective contact measures whether each prospective contact possesseseach of a contact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship; and the contact ranking component operative to determinethe ranking weight based on the relationship count, wherein prospectivecontacts with equal relationship count are ranked relative to a contactcoefficient, wherein the contact coefficient is generated based onsocial-networking information from a social-networking system.
 14. Theapparatus of claim 11, wherein the prospective contact list is generatedbased on a union of two or more of a contact-of-contact list for theuser account, a soft-match list for the user account, a reverse-contactlist for the user account, and a short-message-service-match list forthe user account.
 15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the predictedcommunication interest is based on a linear function of two or more of acontact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, a short-message-service-matchrelationship, and a contact coefficient, wherein the contact coefficientis generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system, the linear function determined based on alinear regression of a historical data set for the communication system,the linear regression based on a predicted communication interest model,the predicted communication interest model predicting one or more of anexistence of communication interaction between the user account and aprospective contact, a duration of communication interaction between theuser account and the prospective contact, a user contact futurecommunication activity measure, and a user contact future engagementmeasure.
 16. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:generating a prospective contact list for a user account for acommunication system based on a user repository for the communicationsystem, the prospective contact list comprising a plurality ofprospective contacts, wherein generating the prospective contact listfor the user account excludes any existing contacts from an existingcontact list for the user account; determine a predicted communicationinterest for each prospective contact on the prospective contact listfor the user account; determine a ranking weight for each prospectivecontact on the prospective contact list based on the predictedcommunication interest for each prospective contact; and order theprospective contact list for display for the user account based on thedetermined ranking weight for each prospective contact on theprospective contact list.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 16, wherein the predicted communication interestis based on two or more of a contact-of-contact relationship for eachprospective contact of the prospective contact list, a soft-matchrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist, a reverse-contact-list relationship for each prospective contactof the prospective contact list, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship for each prospective contact of the prospective contactlist.
 18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim16, comprising further instructions that, when executed, cause a systemto: generate a relationship count for each prospective contact of theprospective contact list, wherein the relationship count for eachprospective contact measures whether each prospective contact possesseseach of a contact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, and a short-message-service-matchrelationship; and determine the ranking weight based on the relationshipcount, wherein prospective contacts with equal relationship count areranked relative to a contact coefficient, wherein the contactcoefficient is generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 16, wherein the prospective contact list isgenerated based on a union of two or more of a contact-of-contact listfor the user account, a soft-match list for the user account, areverse-contact list for the user account, and ashort-message-service-match list for the user account.
 20. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein thepredicted communication interest is based on a linear function of two ormore of a contact-of-contact relationship, a soft-match relationship, areverse-contact-list relationship, a short-message-service-matchrelationship, and a contact coefficient, wherein the contact coefficientis generated based on social-networking information from asocial-networking system, the linear function determined based on alinear regression of a historical data set for the communication system,the linear regression based on a predicted communication interest model,the predicted communication interest model predicting one or more of anexistence of communication interaction between the user account and aprospective contact, a duration of communication interaction between theuser account and the prospective contact, a user contact futurecommunication activity measure, and a user contact future engagementmeasure.